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Peace Corps Part Deux!

Is it too soon to say, “I love you?” Because I kind of think I …might. How’s that for commitment?

But can you really blame me? Don’t play the fool, Guinea, you know you’ve been doing your letter best this whole time to persuade me of your affection. Strutting your bright colors and vivid smiles; greeting me on the streets with genuine affection shining in your eyes. Don’t tell me you do that for all the new guests, it just might break my heart, but that’s just your kind nature. All the more to admire. Tell me you really mean it -that your languages will soon be gliding off my tongue and your people will accept me as Sister. I sort of liked you from the moment I awoke. The night I arrived I was pummeled by your humid, dripping, heat; the two days of intermittent sleep made me wobbily and dizzy, but perhaps I really was swooning. Yours is a rough and rugged beauty of someone who knows how to work and who’s nature shines through. No, but that morning, that morning when I was greeted with a bean sandwich–a delicacy I knew, but somehow you made it your own. Well, I kind of felt at home.

So here’s to us! Here’s to you and me and nine beautiful months of projects, accomplishments, and friendship.

The small minority of people who are able to stay in relationships for years on end are the ones who realize—or most likely just understand on an intuitive level—that they are shacked up with a fallible human. They are going to have many things about them that are unpleasant.

As I sat and contemplated all of this and the loss of my own father to a tragic suicide when I was only eight years old, I began to comprehend that I was (and still am) guilty of making unfavorable choices, especially